Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Alongside these environmental changes a series of objects or replicas belonging to individuals, willing to participate, were placed within the space.

All participants remained anonymous to each other. Upon seeing the first familiar object the viewer experiences a feeling of recognition and then another is seen and the viewer starts to give way to a feeling of unease as they feel a piece of themselves being exposed, It is this feeling in particular which i feel best illustrates what it is to be dressed. It is less about the physical object and more about the cognitive and emotional response to that object. Ultimately the intention of the film was to trigger this response.

My research has illustrated that people respond better to objects and experiences familiar or personal to them so for the purpose of this exploration i decided to focus on RMIT city campus, building 8, level 10 as an environment. Working along side director Yianni Warnock, i aimed to create a film to capture this familiar environment in such a way that was unfamiliar to the viewer. Slight physical changes were made to the environment, mood was altered using sound and lighting and certain elements of the space not often focused on were made paramount. all hands were taken off the clockslife was introduced Every machine in the machine room was threaded up with green threadManequin branding was made colourful using lazer cut stencils.

Monday, June 14, 2010

If we are so dressed by everything it would seem that the only way to be entirely undressed would be to no longer existI considered the film being a group of people attempting to get undressed - they start by removing their garments then in almost desperation attempt to scratch and scrape the surface of their skin off until finally they end up in jumpsuit/ bodybags and collapse in a heap on the floor. The camera looks down on the heap to expose the face the shapes create.

In week 2 of the Shadow Studio we were shown the work of Erwin Wurm and more specifically his One Minute Sculptures exhibition where he provided a series of instructions to the audience and had them replicate his vision and hold for 60 seconds. A series of the sculptures were carried out in class one of which was a shirt on a hanger hung from the lip of the wearer – the general response to whether she was ‘wearing’ the shirt was “from some angles”. If a person stood in the middle of a room and the objects within the space moved closer and closer to the individual at what point would she be dressed by them? Is the act of wearing something purely subject to proximity to self, or is it more dependent on the accepted manner or representation of how a human would traditionally wear something?

When beginning my research I found it a lot easier to discuss what it was to be dressed than what it was to be naked. When we take our clothes off before stepping into a shower, are we not appropriately dressed for that situation? And furthermore if we surmise that when we physically interact with something we are wearing it are we not then dressed by the water that runs over the body once the shower is turned on?